


100 Caps Each

by shapedforfighting



Series: The Case Files of Nick Valentine and the Vaultdweller [3]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Ethical Dilemmas, Gen, Human Trafficking, Kidnapping, Moral Dilemmas, Nick Valentine POV, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-21
Updated: 2016-11-22
Packaged: 2018-09-01 06:22:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8612662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shapedforfighting/pseuds/shapedforfighting
Summary: Nick Valentine would do almost anything for the Sole Survivor. But when the two of them must track down a child gone missing from Sanctuary, Gale Anderson has to make some tough decisions between the justice she's always known and the harsh reality of the wasteland. Her choices may test Nick's faith in her, as well as her understanding of what is right.





	1. "What else can I do?"

**Author's Note:**

> Dear reader,
> 
> This is my exploration of a question Vash the Stampede asked in Badlands Rumble. I'm still not sure I've answered it.

According to Nick Valentine’s sensors, the day was unnaturally hot for winter in the Commonwealth. He knew this, too, by the sweat on the back of Gale Anderson’s t-shirt and the brown jacket she had slung over her shoulder. She walked ahead of him, head on a swivel to keep an eye on the surrounding countryside as they skirted Concord. They didn’t like to travel through the abandoned town when they returned to Sanctuary, as it was a prime place for ambush.

Shielding her eyes against the bright glare of the sun, Gale looked up at the enormous white clouds that had been piling up around them all morning. “Looks like a storm’s coming.”

Nick kept watch on the scrubby, winter-brown land around them while Gale was distracted. “We should be there before it hits,” he replied.

By the time they reached the settlement, the clouds had lowered and taken on a familiar yellowish-green tint. It was definitely a radiation storm, blowing in from the Glowing Sea in the southwest. But the citizens of Sanctuary kept working up to the last second—repairing turrets, raking in vegetable gardens, purifying water, cooking and cleaning. Every hand helped. Individuals only paused long enough to acknowledge the arrival of their occasionally-resident Vaultdweller and her synthetic companion with a nod or a wave. Survival came first, greetings second.

At the main house, Nick and Gale dropped their packs onto the communal dining room table. It creaked under the weight of scavenged and purchased supplies picked up on a run to the remnants of Boston. Freed of her burden, Gale straightened her back with a groan and Nick smirked at her. The weight had hardly fazed his pistons, but she had insisted they carry an equal amount, to be fair.

Catching his look, Gale said, “Oh, shut up.”

Nick couldn’t help but laugh, part humor and part relief. They had made it back alive.

“This jacket is trashed.”

Nick and Gale looked up to find Jun Long standing on the other side of the table, holding Gale’s jacket in one hand. Dust danced in the shaft of light coming in through a crack in the wall behind him, illuminating his scraggly black hair. He had a face like a sad basset hound’s and he wore a formerly white t-shirt and jeans rolled at the cuffs. His fingers fiddled with four long rips in the back of the jacket.

Attempting to recall when Jun Long had entered the room made Nick uncomfortable. He either hadn’t registered Jun’s presence or the guy had managed to sneak up on them. Or maybe he hadn’t quite, because Gale didn’t seem surprised to see him there. She just said, “Sometimes that’s the price you pay for doing something stupid. I’m lucky that was the only cost.”

“You should let me patch it up,” Jun said, as if Gale hadn’t spoken.

Gale busied herself with unzipping the bags on the table. “Alright, Jun. Thanks.”

Jun Long crept away down the hall just as the front door clattered open and a group of five or six kids burst in. Noisy and energetic, not at all as if they’d recently been going without as the town’s supplies ran low. They clambered around the table and Gale started distributing food and items for them to take back to their families.

“Oh, and I’ve got something for you, Jaycee,” Gale said.

Jaycee was an orphan of maybe ten or eleven years old. The other settlers shared the girl’s care between them, but it was Gale who had somehow earned her affections. Whenever she and Nick were in town, Jaycee followed Gale everywhere between chores, chattering up a storm at the quiet Vaultdweller. Gale spent most of that time looking surprised at the girl’s attention.  

From her bag, Gale withdrew a miraculously unbattered teddy bear. Nick had mixed feelings about the thing because it had almost cost Gale her life to retrieve. Toy shopping these days was nothing like going down to the local department store. Still, he knew Jaycee would love it.

But when Gale looked up at the children, she frowned. “Hey, where’s Jaycee?”

All of the kids usually went everywhere together; Jaycee not being with them was unusual. Murad, the spokesperson of the group, shrugged, saying, “Haven’t seen her.”

Peering around at the kids, Gale said, “Wait, have _any_ of you seen her today?”

All of them shook their heads no.

Gale and Nick shared a look. He thought about saying, “It could be nothing.” But the concern in Gale’s dark eyes said she didn’t think so, and Nick found he felt uneasy as well. They both tended to trust their instincts and something about this seemed wrong. So instead, he said, “Let’s check with Garvey.”

Out the side door, they found Preston Garvey, the settlement’s leader in Gale’s absence, under the former carport. ‘Former’ because cars didn’t run anymore and thus no longer needed ports. The metal overhang had been converted into a communal workshop for repairing armor and weapons as well as for scrapping for spare parts. It smelled like oil and grease and for some reason, Nick liked it in here.

Preston Garvey was on the floor, hunched over a malfunctioning turret, with tools and parts spread neatly on the concrete around him. Sweat slicked his dark skin in the heat and his coat and hat were draped over a nearby bench. His laser musket lay within easy reach.

Gale crouched on her heels next to Garvey to peer into the machine where he was working with a screwdriver. The Minuteman looked up at the motion and his face relaxed when he saw her. “It’s good to see you still in one piece,” he said. He gave Nick a nod. “Both of you.”

“You, too,” Gale said, a faint smile touching the corners of her mouth. Nick watched to see if it would fully form, but it vanished like smoke. “Preston,” she continued, “have you seen Jaycee around?”

Garvey paused and rested his arms on the turret, looking thoughtfully into the middle distance. “No, can’t say that I have,” he said after a moment. He turned his attentive gaze back to Gale. “Why?”

Getting to her feet, Gale scrubbed a hand through her spiky black hair. Nick imagined that he could see the wheels turning in her head. She didn’t say anything, so he responded to Garvey himself.

“The kids haven’t seen her today, either.”

Sturges, Sanctuary’s resident mechanic, stopped on the weedy sidewalk just outside on his way past. “Who are you looking for?” he called.

“Jaycee McGoffin,” Preston called back.

Sturges walked a bit closer so they wouldn’t have to shout, hands on hips. “Well now,” he said. “Think I saw her talkin’ to Simon Abney this mornin’.”

Gale frowned. “Who?”

“New guy,” said Garvey. To Sturges, he said, “Any idea where Simon is now?”

Thunder growled in the distance and Sturges looked up at the sky. “He’s on patrol at the bridge.”

“We didn’t see anyone there when we came in,” Nick said. Gale shook her head in agreement.

“Really?” Garvey said as he got to his feet. He wiped his hands off on a dirty dishrag and picked up his laser musket, cradling it against his side. “Let’s check the guardhouse. Maybe he’s hanging out in there.”

The guardhouse was a wood and tin shack, constructed next to the half-collapsed bridge that led over the river toward Concord. When they opened the creaking metal door, the space inside was only occupied by an old office chair and a pile of cigarette butts from previous watches. There was no sign of Simon Abney anywhere nearby.

“He abandoned his post,” Garvey growled. Standing next to him, Nick could hear him grinding his teeth. “He’s putting all our lives in danger!”

Gale stepped out of the shack, a folded slip of paper between her fingers. In a low voice, she said, “It gets worse.”

She handed the paper to Nick. Garvey read it with him over his shoulder. In jagged handwriting, it read, CONCORD SPEAKEASY, 100 CAPS EACH.

“No,” Nick said, frowning. “You don’t think…”

At the same time, Garvey said, “We have to go down there.”

“Not you,” Gale said, pointing at Garvey. “I’ll check it out, but I need you to stay here in case Jaycee shows up. Get a search party going in the meantime.”

“What? No, send Nick back—” Garvey started.

“Hey!” said Nick.

Gale shook her head. “These people hardly know Nick. They won’t listen to him, but they’ll listen to you.”

She didn’t say that they might not trust a synth anyway.

Preston Garvey regarded Gale, his alert eyes troubled. After a moment, he said, “You’re sure you can handle this with just the two of you?”

“Sure.” With an unconcerned air, Gale withdrew a pack of cigarettes from her back pocket and lit one up. She blew out smoke and it hung in the dead air like a ghost. “But if we’re not back by dawn, come get us.”

Thunder rumbled from the wall of yellow clouds on the verge of rolling over them. Preston Garvey nodded, turning and walking back into Sanctuary, shoulders back and head held high. The settlement appeared deserted as everyone hunkered down to weather the impending radiation storm. All was still and the air smelled like ozone, oozing thickly in the heat.

Gale handed Nick the cigarette and drew her 10 mm pistol, checking the clip and her supply of ammo. Nick just held it between the fingers of his metal hand, watching her. “Should you be going out there in this?”

With a double metallic click, Gale slapped the clip home and cocked the pistol. “What else can I do? If Jaycee’s been kidnapped, I have to get her back.” She looked up at Nick and her intense, dark eyes searched his. Somewhat disconnectedly, Nick found himself thinking that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her truly smile.

Then Gale said the words he wanted to hear. “Are you coming with me?”

She didn’t need to ask, but she always did. Nick nodded as he drew on the cigarette, as if it didn’t matter to him as much as it did. “You know I’m with you,” he said. He then offered Gale a brown pharmaceutical bottle and the contents rattled as she took it from him. It was filled with Rad-X, a drug designed to resist radiation poisoning. “But if you’re gonna do this,” he said, “you’ll need some of these.”


	2. "You were very brave."

Cigarette smoke made thin, hazy clouds inside the Concord speakeasy. Despite the rad storm raging outside, the interior was curiously muffled, perhaps an effect of the intact sofas and dirty red carpet. Four men and two women sat on the couches around a low coffee table near the front door. They were dressed for life in the wasteland: layers of tattered shirts and coats and scarves and hats. Despite relaxed postures, their weapons lay close to hand. The table between them was covered in piles of caps and playing cards from an ancient deck, lit from above by a slowly rotating fan. This did nothing to dispel the sluggish heat brought on by the storm. A radio at one end of the table played static and the somber voice of Travis Miles murmuring into the station microphone about loss.

A guy with a cigar stuck between his teeth made his play—the cards riffling against the table’s dusty surface—and leaned back in his seat. “We better not’ve come all the way to the corner of fucking nowhere to buy just one kid,” he said around the cigar.

One of the women, this one wearing a red cap, sighed a longsuffering sigh, as if she’d already heard this. “‘It’s bad for business,’” she said. “We know.”

Another guy with long stringy hair and something of the snake about his eyes watched the next person’s play intently. He said, “Simon’s gone back to get some more. Once we’ve made it worth the trip, we can ditch this place.”

“Rad storm’ll slow ’im down,” said the other woman, a big blond who looked like she had oak trees somewhere in her lineage.

“Not if he knows what’s good for ’im,” said Cigar Guy. “Keepin’ us waitin’ ain’t good for ’im.” He removed the cigar from his mouth and blew a big, messy smoke ring. “Can’t believe he only brought one. Spineless scum.”

“Now that,” said Gale Anderson, “is something we can agree on.”

The wastelanders all looked up to find a lanky woman leaning against a column behind the cashier’s counter. She had short, spiky hair and held a cigarette between her long fingers. It had been tricky as hell for her and Nick to get through the back door and into position without alerting their quarry. They’d had to shut off the Geiger counter function on Gale’s Pipboy just to get the damn thing to stop clicking in the rad storm. But it was worth it to see the looks of total shock on the faces of this bunch of filth.

Nick, standing back in the shadows where only his glowing yellow eyes could be seen, felt a smirk coming on. He let it.

“The one thing I _don’t_ think we can agree on,” Gale continued in her level tone, “is the ethical ramifications of the deplorable business of child trafficking.” She gestured toward the group with her cigarette wielding hand, leaving a drift of ash and smoke in its wake. “ _You_ would say I should let you live, but frankly, you’re biased in your favor. _I_ , on the other hand, say you should die.” Now she shifted just enough to reveal the 10 mm pistol she had aimed at them. “In the interest of full disclosure, however,” Gale said as she flicked the spent cigarette away, “I’m biased, too.”

With her next breath, she squeezed the trigger and blew a hole through Cigar Guy’s head.

Damn, that woman liked to put on a show.

All hell proceeded to break loose. Nick and Gale dove for cover behind the counter as the wastelanders returned fire, yelling as they turned over couches and the coffee table. Dust flew and gunfire roared in the confined space, no longer quiet amidst the shouting and the cursing. Nick peeked around the end of the counter and nailed a guy in the arm. The metallic scent of gun smoke filled the air.

The radio cut out when a stray bullet went through it. In the brief pause afterward, Nick heard a clattering noise and looked up to find the greasy-haired guy topping the staircase to the balcony above. He and Gale were too far back beneath the overhang for him to have height advantage, so what was he doing? It was then that Nick also registered the sound of high pitched yells coming from somewhere on the second floor. He recognized the voice as Jaycee McGoffin's.

Woodchips flew past Nick’s head when a bullet ricocheted off the floor. “Gale!” he shouted as the gunfire resumed.

Gale’s eyes tracked the escapist up the stairs for a second before snapping back to the fight in front of her. She said, “Go get him, Nick.”

Nick dumped fresh rounds into his revolver and slapped the cylinder shut. “You’ll be okay here alone?”

Gale rose up and aimed a shot over the counter. “I’ve got these guys.”

For the first time in a long time, the Vaultdweller smiled.

Chilled, Nick made for the stairs as Gale laid down a barrage of cover fire. At the top, he followed the sound of a shriek around a corner, his boots thumping on the old wood flooring. In one of the intact bedrooms, he found the greasy guy holding a gun against Jaycee’s temple. The wastelander had her small body in front of him to serve as a meat shield. But one of her arms was still cuffed to a bedpost.

“Nick,” Jaycee breathed, voice catching. Her elfin face and wispy blond hair were filthy and tear stains tracked down her cheeks. A fresh bruise bloomed under one eye, but she appeared otherwise unharmed.

It could’ve been a whole lot worse. Nick realized he had expected a whole lot worse.

Nick had his revolver trained on Greasy Guy. But with that pistol so close to Jaycee’s head, he couldn’t shoot without risk of the man pulling the trigger. He would’ve spat if he had the saliva to do it. “Making off with your stolen goods, eh?” Nodding at the handcuff around the girl’s wrist, he said, “How’re you planning to use her to get outta here like that?”

“Stay back!” Greasy Guy shouted, unimaginatively Nick thought.

Gunfire rattled from downstairs and lighting flashed through the windows, followed by a crash of thunder.

“Look,” said Nick in his most reassuring tone, “just release her and I’ll let you walk away.”

“Like hell you will!” The man’s face, behind the curtain of greasy hair, was a mess of fear and anger. Being a synth meant Nick had an excellent poker face, but the guy still knew he was lying. There was no other way out. He had seen his own death in Nick’s artificial eyes.

Nick Valentine had no intention of letting this man live.

Jaycee chose that moment to jerk forward and stomp hard on Greasy Guy’s foot. She screamed as the gun went off next to her head, the bullet driving into the floor. At the same time, Nick squeezed off his shot and it went straight through the guy’s neck. Blood spattered in Jaycee’s fair hair, the crimson drops standing out like jewels in the snow.

Jaycee gasped softly and Nick was across the floor and pulling her from the man’s grip just as the corpse began to slump over. He crouched down in front of her, keeping her from looking as the body hit the floor with a wet smack. Breath hitching, Jaycee buried her face against Nick’s chest and he wrapped his arms around her, placing his non-metal hand on the back of her head. Her shoulders shook against him, but she made no sound.

“You were very brave,” Nick murmured to her.

By the time Nick had picked the lock on the handcuffs and carried Jaycee out onto the balcony, the gunfire below had ceased. Come to think of it, he wasn’t even sure when it had stopped. Bodies littered the room below, and he couldn’t tell who was who in the greenish-yellow light from the windows. The heavy hand of fear settled on the back of Nick’s neck as the possibilities of Gale’s fate raced through his mind.

But when he stepped off the last stair, Jaycee in one arm and revolver at the ready, Nick found Gale under the balcony, a long way from where he had left her. She had one of the wastelanders pinned up against the back wall, one fist bunched into his shirt collar and the muzzle of her pistol digging into the soft flesh beneath his chin. He was bearded and scruffy and largely unremarkable. Gale had her face close to his and Nick could see the whites of the man’s eyes in the gloom. Nick prudently turned his body so that the kid in his arms wouldn’t see this unfold, but he found he couldn’t look away himself.

In a soft voice edged with razors, Gale was saying, “Do you know who I am?”

The man’s Adam’s apple bobbed against the gun barrel as he swallowed hard. “Y-you’re the Vaultdweller. The one we been hearin’ about on the r-radio.”

“So you know my reputation.”

The man squeaked and shivered in her grip. Nick wasn’t sure he recognized this steely voice as belonging to Gale.

After a moment of letting him sweat beneath her stare, Gale said, “I’m going to let you go” —the guy made a noise somewhere between a gurgle and a whimper— “and you’re going to go back to your disgusting child trafficking bosses and deliver a message to them. From me.” She turned her head sideways, almost like a lover, and whispered into his ear, “The message is this: Sanctuary and all its children are _under my protection_.”

“O-okay,” the man breathed, his head bobbing like a broken spring. “Okay okay okay okay.”

Gale released the wastelander and he slid down the wall to land in the trash at her feet. He gazed up at her in bewildered shock, hands shaking. She didn’t step back to give him room, just glowered down at him.

“Well, go on!” Nick snarled at the guy. “Before I finish the job for her.”

Within the span of one breath, the wastelander scrambled to his feet and careened out the front door into the radiation storm.

In the silence that followed, Gale stood staring at the wall. Nick walked up to her, crushing the rubbish underfoot. He saw that her face was blank as he said, “You did good.”

Scrubbing a shaking hand across her forehead and into her hair, Gale turned to face him. Her bleak expression melted when she spotted the girl in his arms. “Jaycee,” she murmured, touching the blood in her hair. “Are you okay?”

Jaycee nodded, but she remained uncharacteristically quiet. She had her arms around Nick’s neck in a death grip. Lucky he didn’t need to breathe.

A faint pattering sound reached Nick and he looked down to find spots of blood collecting on the wood floor next to Gale. His eyes followed their trajectory back up to their source and found red spreading along the hem of Gale’s white t-shirt from her hip.

Nick set Jaycee down on the floor. “Are _you_ okay?” he demanded, crouching to examine the wound.

Gale exhaled, the sort of sigh that sounded like weariness or wooziness. “It’s just a graze, Nick. I’ll live.”

Nick _tsked_ and liberated a scarf from the corpse of the oak-shaped woman, a brown and white gingham one. He wound it around Gale’s hips and one leg, tying it off in a big knot over the wound to staunch the bleeding. He pretended not to notice Gale’s blush and the way she stared at the ceiling as he fussed over her. While he worked, Gale popped open the bottle of Rad-X and handed some to Jaycee before dry swallowing a couple herself.

“Think you can make it back?” Nick said as he stood up. “We probably shouldn’t hang around here.”

“Yeah, I can make it.” Gale glanced out the window and said, “Storm’s letting up. And besides, we’ve got one more rat to catch tonight.”

 


	3. "We do the best we can."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear reader,
> 
> This part got a little... dark. Not very much, but just enough that I feel the need to mention it to you. Please, proceed with this in mind.

A regular rain shower followed right on the heels of the rad storm as it passed, bringing with it cold winter air and scattered raindrops. Nick removed his tan trench coat and draped it over Jaycee in his arms. His brown fedora he dropped onto Gale’s head as she limped along beside him. Soon, his shirt was soaked through, but he didn’t mind. He was just glad they were all alive.

The sun had mostly set when they made it back to Sanctuary, plunging the world into chilly blue shadows. Preston Garvey called off the search parties when they arrived. It turned out they had already caught Simon Abney heading out of town with another kid. He was being held in a locked room under armed guard, so Gale called a meeting with the settlement leaders to decide what to do with him.

Nick leaned against the wall behind Gale in the dining room of the main house, with everyone else arranged around the table. Another settler neither he nor Gale recognized was allowed into the meeting to stitch up the wound on Gale’s hip while the rest of them talked. The synth kept an eye on the stranger, but she did a good job. Jun Long quietly returned Gale’s patched jacket to her. Jaycee sat on Gale’s lap the entire time and Gale never once complained, even while she was being sewed back together. The girl remained quiet and solemn, a total break from the happy, chatty child she was before this day. Gale kept touching the girl’s hair, her expression lost when she took in this stark difference again and again.

The discussion didn’t last very long at all.

In the cold and the dark, the settlers gathered at the wooden bridge leading out of Sanctuary. The rain had stopped and the storm moved on, leaving behind a wet cold that threatened to drop below freezing. Some of those gathered held torches, the flickering orange flames reflected on the river below. But they were tiny dots of light in the immense black all around, outshone by the billions of stars blazing in the sky overhead. The settlers all turned as Preston Garvey and Sturges hauled their hapless prisoner through their ranks and out onto the bridge. They shoved him down onto his knees and stepped back on either side of him, weapons trained on his head.

Simon Abney’s heavy breathing puffed into the cold air as he shrank down on his knees, hands above his head. He had short brown hair ringing a mostly bald pate and a thick beard. Looking up at Garvey, he said, “W-what’re ya gonna do with me?”

As if on cue, Gale Anderson stepped forward from Nick’s side at the bridge rail, boots ringing against the planks. Nothing about her was theatrical now; every line of her body, from her narrowed dark eyes to her clenched fists, spelled rage. Her truest truth. She stopped in front of Simon Abney, then crouched down so that she was at eye level with him.

“Simon Abney,” she said, surprisingly level voice carrying to the onlookers, “you have been found guilty of human trafficking and kidnapping on at least two counts. You were instrumental in the traumatization of a child. You have betrayed the trust of this settlement, the citizens of which took you in and called you one of their own. For these crimes, the settlement of Sanctuary hereby bans you from its borders. And,” her voice lowered, “so that no other settlement makes the mistake we made—”

Marcy Long stepped forward out of the crowd, bearing a long steel rod with a metal bottle cap welded to the end. The crimped edge around the cap glowed with heat from where she had held it in an open torch flame. She handed the brand to Gale and moved back.

“—in the sight of these witnesses, you will be branded an exile,” Gale finished.

Simon Abney shrank back—whimpering _no no no!_ —but Gale caught him by his coat collar. He struggled in her grip until he heard the click of Sturges cocking back the hammer on his pistol. Abney froze, eyes wide.

Gale said, “When you hate me after this day, remember: you chose this.” Her jaw clenched and through gritted teeth, she spat, “It was worth one hundred caps to you.”

In a single motion, the Vaultdweller grabbed a fistful of Simon’s hair in one hand and, with the other, pressed the bottle cap brand against his cheek. Nick cut his gaze away as Simon’s scream pierced the night; it quickly died to a wet whimper. When Nick looked again, the Vaultdweller was hauling Simon up and shoving him toward the other end of the bridge and the open winter night. He had a toothy, circular black mark burned into his cheek, the flesh around it already swelling. He sobbed as he ran in wobbling steps toward freedom and eventual doom.

Gale stood watching him go, legs splayed apart and hands loose at her sides. The brand rolled along the planking beside her where she had dropped it, hissing as the heat touched the damp wood until it came to a halt. The rest of the witnesses dispersed to find warm homes and much-needed beds. As they passed, Sturges gave Gale a light slap on the back and Garvey nodded to her.

Quiet descended, but still Gale stood there. Crickets chirruped uneasily and smoke drifted upward from the end of Nick’s freshly lit cigarette. Hat brim angled low, Nick lounged with his back and elbows against the rail. He tapped ash over the side several times as he waited for her.

With a shiver, Gale finally pulled her exposed hands into the sleeves of her jacket and joined Nick at the railing. She rested her elbows on the old, splintery wood and gazed downriver in the opposite direction of him, expression destroyed. Nick handed over the cigarette.

Gale only looked at it a moment before handing it back. “I don’t deserve this,” she whispered, voice cracking.

Nick grunted, neither agreement nor disagreement. Studying the glowing embers, he said, “You probably need it more than I do.”

Gale shook her head and was silent for a long, long time. The night grew colder and Nick tipped his chin back to gaze up at a cluster of bright blue stars. Questions spun in his mind. He was uncertain how to help Gale, uncertain whether he should—did she need a hug or to be left alone? had they done the right thing here?—so he did nothing. Remaining by her side was all he could offer right now.

“I keep thinking,” Gale eventually said from the dark, “that death might have been more merciful. But I couldn’t—” the handrail creaked as she tightened her grip on it, “—execute him in cold blood.” Nick heard Gale run a hand through her hair, a gesture familiar enough by now, after months of travel with her, that he recognized it even without looking at her. “I just… I don’t know what I should’ve done. I don’t know if I should’ve killed those people but let him live.” Her voice dropped to a murmur. “But I couldn’t let it happen. Not again. Not another kidnapping... not if I could stop it.”

Knowing that he wasn’t the only one facing inner conflict over this mess somehow made Nick feel a little better, a little more forgiving toward Gale. He blew out a stream of smoke, white against the night. “Justice takes many forms,” he said. “That can be dangerous thinking, but we do the best we can.”

Gale grunted, neither agreement nor disagreement. “You know, I was studying to be a lawyer. Before all this…” —she gestured with an open hand at the broken, irradiated land around them— “happened.”

“Well,” said Nick with a smile, “that explains all those fancy words of yours.”

Gale chuckled, but no smile appeared. “My point is,” she said, “what happened tonight is not how it would’ve been handled back then.”

When Nick shifted to look at Gale with his night vision, he saw shadows lurking behind her eyes. It was at moments like these, when Gale faced the often harsh moral gray areas of post-war society, that Nick remembered she had not grown up in this world. She didn’t think like the other inhabitants of the Commonwealth. Hers had been a gentler life than theirs, with problems like kidnappers dealt with by legals and officials. She didn’t belong in this cruel reality but, Nick had to admit, she did adapt to it.

Nick said, “I remember.” He nodded back toward the rickety houses across the bridge from them. “All I know is, that little girl in there didn’t disappear into the horrors of the wasteland, thanks to you.” He flicked more ash off of the cigarette. “Tonight, I think that’s good enough for me.”

Gale nodded almost imperceptibly. Several more minutes ticked by as she considered what he had said. Then, without a word, she took the cigarette from Nick with gentle fingers and drew on what little was left. He accepted this as a sign that maybe she no longer thought of herself as undeserving.

Nick decided then that for all the heart Gale had shown today, neither did he.


End file.
